Yahoo Sports Though COVID-19 is still raging, Jack Nicklaus ready to shake Memorial Tournament winner’s hand
Legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus will be front and center this week ready to host the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village.
While it may put the 80-year-old at a higher risk for contracting COVID-19, Nicklaus is still planning to shake the tournament winner’s hand as they walk off the 18th green on Sunday.
"I'm going to shake their hand. I going to walk right out there and shake your hand," Nicklaus said Tuesday, via ESPN. "If they don't want to shake my hand, that's fine. I'll give them a fist bump or an elbow bump, but I'm not going to give them COVID-19, so that's — I wouldn't put anybody in that position. I wouldn't do that, and if I was in any danger of doing that, I wouldn't shake their hands.”
Nicklaus won 73 times in his PGA Tour career, including 18 major championships, and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974. He won the Memorial Tournament twice himself, too, and designed the iconic course that holds it each year in Dublin, Ohio.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises people not to shake hands with others during the coronavirus pandemic, which is still raging throughout the country.
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There were more than 3.4 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States as of Tuesday afternoon, according to The New York Times, and nearly 136,000 deaths attributed to it. The country set a new single-day record on Friday, recording more than 68,000 new cases alone, and has averaged more than 60,000 new cases a day over the past week.
Nicklaus, who is at an inherently higher risk for contracting the virus due to his age, just isn’t going to give up the tradition he’s started at his own tournament.
“Incidentally, I like shaking their hand, too,” he said, via ESPN. “I think that's a great tradition, but it was as much fun for me as I hope it is for them."
The wrong congratulatory text
Nicklaus and his wife, Barbara, were locked in during the playoff at the Workday Charity Open on Sunday — the first of back-to-back events at Muirfield Village.
He, like golf fans everywhere, was blown away when Justin Thomas sunk a 50-foot putt on the first playoff hole. While Collin Morikawa expertly made his 24-footer to extend the playoff, something he eventually won on the third hole, Nicklas called it after Thomas’ putt.
He flipped off his TV and took off, boarding his jet to fly from his home in Florida to Columbus ahead of the Memorial Tournament.
“We scheduled our flight to get up here because I wanted to ... congratulate the winner in the locker room at 6 p.m.,” Nicklaus said, via the Columbus Dispatch. “So we were getting on an airplane at 2 p.m. just as we were getting ready to take off, the first hole of the playoff, Justin holes that big long putt. We didn’t see Morikawa’s putt.”
Naturally, the two texted Justin instantly to congratulate him on his big win.
It wasn’t until later that they realized their mistake.
“Barbara and I both texted Justin and said to him, ‘Wow, what a fantastic putt, unbelievable fantastic super putt. Can’t believe that you made that putt. Now you’ve got a chance to win two in a row,’” Nicklaus said, via the Dispatch.
“Then we got in the air and we picked up Wi-Fi after 10,000 feet and found out Morikawa won the tournament, so I had to send another text and say, ‘Oops, a little premature.’”
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